Absolutely Wild Headlines You *Didn't* Hear About š§
I read these articles so you don't have to (but you should, they're great).
Before we jump right into the headlines you might have missed, hello! Iām Helen and this is my online publication, Helen Avery. Itās like a lifestyle magazine (remember those?) but itās FREE with a mix of product round ups like my Christmas Gift Guide, recipes, longer pieces like this one ā5 Surprising Reasons to Get Off Social Mediaā and I actually wrote this before Elon Musk drop-kicked Twitter into a dumpster and set it on fire. And did I mention itās FREE? It is! However, this is indeed a job for me so if youād like to support me, please consider paying $50 a year or $5 a month.
Message for Canadians šØš¦ If you want to use Interac instead, you can reply to this email and Iāll get your message š©š»āš» and weāll figure it out!
š¦ A very happy Thanksgiving to my American friends! With you in mind I am sending this out early. Have a great day(s) off! Side note: Why does your Thanksgiving fall so late, while ours falls so early? We had ours back in early October. We should merge them and celebrate early November.
š¤ Letās read on about some absolutely wild articles that were published this fallā¦
Olivia Wildeās Salad Dressing Test
Are you up on the whole Olivia Wilde-Harry Styles-Ted Lasso situation? Very briefly, Jason Sudeikis aka Ted Lasso knew that director Olivia Wilde *apparently* was stepping out on him with Harry Styles when she left their marital home toting her famous dressing to serve to her new man. This, according to their shady former nanny.Ā
W Magazine writer Carolyn Twersky explores this dressingās magical power in āI Made Olivia Wildeās Special Salad Dressing To Make My Boyfriend Fall Deeper in Love With Me.ā Hereās a snippet from her article:Ā
āWilde reportedly made this āspecial dressingā to woo Harry Styles. Sudeikis seemed to be enamored by the special sauce as wellāso much so that he was apparently incredibly distressed when he learned Wilde was making it for another man. He even reportedly āflung himself under [Wildeās] carā to stop her from delivering it to Styles.ā If Ted Lasso took part in this level of Turkish soap opera-style (if you know, you know) hysterics (I doubt it), all I have to say is Jeez man. Control yourself. On to the recipe!
Olivia Wildeās Nora Ephron Salad Dressing
ā 2 tablespoons of Grey Poupon mustard
ā 2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
ā 6 tablespoons of olive oil
š„£ Whisk ingredients well until creamy
Fair reader, in the name of fearless journalism I bought these ingredients, including specifically Grey Poupon (itās made with white wine, did you know?). I made it. Itās ok. I donāt think itās up to snuff to snag a potential side-piece, but thatās just me.
Unsurprisingly, itās heavy on mustard flavor, so if dijon vinaigrettes are your thing, youāll like it. It reminds me of the dressings of the 90s, which isnāt entirely a bad thing.
I adapted it with a tablespoon of honey to give it a more sweet/sour flavor profile, and I didnāt add any salt: the mustard is already very salty.Ā The honey took the edge off but still, the mustard dominates. Read the article here.
Stolen babies of Spain
Sit down for this one. In Franco-era Spain, tens of thousands of newborns were stolen from marginalized mothers and S O L D to wealthy, Franco-supporting couples who could not have kids of their own. This happened as late as the 1970s! These babies were illegally trafficked by the Catholic hospitals they were born at, with the nuns and doctors conspiring to tell new mothers that their babies were stillborn or died and they couldnāt see them.Ā
The Stolen Babies were newborns of political prisoners at first, and by the 1970s they were babies stolen from poorer, unwed and even married working-class mothers. This story āTake Under Fascism, Spainās āStolen Babiesā Are Learning the Truthā in The New York Times Magazine traces the path of Ana Belen Pintado, born in 1973 who had no idea she was a stolen baby until after her āparentsā died.Ā
What she lived through is almost beyond belief:
-the pain of knowing her fake parents bought her and never told her she was a stolen baby
-confronting people in her small town about her origins (some of them knew she was āadoptedā and never told her)
-eventually finding her birth mom, which she eventually does in a twisty and wild goose chase through the court systems and plain old phone book-style cold-calling.Ā
Pintadoās birth mother, still alive, in 1973 was a young married woman who already had an older child and was happy to add a second to her brood when Ana was stolen from her. Chills. Anger. Read the whole story here.Ā
Remember the Ice Bucket Challenge? It Funded a New ALS Drug
The Ice Bucket Challenge was a hugely viral moment back in 2014 (ohmigosh has it really been that long?) where, if you recall, your friends and the hugest celebrities on the planet alike agreed to have a bucket of ice water dumped over their heads in exchange for donations to the ALS Association (ALS is also known as Lou Gehrig's disease).
Side note: Is it bad I got a particularly cheap thrill when already frosty, haughty Vogue editor Anna Wintour got dunked? No? Just me?
Youāll be pleased to know that $2.2 million was raised in these efforts. In an article in Futurism, writer Noor Al-Sibai writes āThe ALS Association put that money into researching and developing a drug known as AMX0035, trade name Relyvrio, which the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) just approved for consumer treatment ahead of the completion of its stage 3 trials.ā
But not so quick: it willĀ ācost a whopping $158,000 per year, and that it's expected to only extend the lives of ALS patients by about six months,ā writes Al-Sibai. Read the whole story here.
GIFs are dying
Who doesnāt like a good GIF? Apparently everyone under 40: GIFs are considered cringey. My favorite is the one of the cat typing. Hereās a still from this mini video because this newsletter doesnāt support GIFs (thus supporting the thesis of the Atlantic article Iām about to describe: Gifs are dead).
āGIFs are ācringeā in part because they are too easy to make and findāthey have been totally devalued by the public. And they are being replaced [...] people communicate with other kinds of moving images now, such as TikTok clips with text over them and super-short Twitter videos that add humor by incorporating sound,ā writes Kaitlyn Tiffany in The GIF Is On Its Deathbed. Read the whole story here.
Deli sandwiches taste better than homemade?
So why does literally any sandwich from any deli shop taste better than the sad-ass affairs I make at home? Itās the ingredientses (trademark, Teresa Giudice from Real Housewives of New Jersey), naturally.
There is also evidence, according to this article in Eating Well that says when you make your own sandwich, youāre less hungry for it, so that doesnāt help.
Key takeaways for a better sandwich:
š Get better bread, and get it sliced. Your janky slices arenāt gonna cut it. Pun unavoidable
šŖ Same with deli meat, sliced with a slicer is better than doing it by hand
š„Ŗ Be careful with your ratios and donāt overload your sandwich
š“ Use a schmear of mayo or other condiments, no globs
š§ Season it! āUsing a squeeze of lemon, fresh herbs or just good old salt and pepper (especially on ingredients like greens, tomatoes, radishes, avocados, etc.) can go a long way in transforming your sandwich from tasting homemade to deli level,ā writes Jacqueline Weiss in Why Deli Sandwiches Taste Better Than Yours.
Is Cheese Good For You? š§
Not to self-hate, but I feel like only health-trend-obsessed North Americans would question something as nourishing and ancient as cheese. Cheesemaking is a 4,000 year old tradition: (https://www.idfa.org/history-of-cheese). Itās an amazing invention!Ā
I realized this in Switzerland on a trip to the ritzy ski towns of St. Moritz and Zermatt years ago, back in my travel-journalism-lite days. A stock of hard cheese means you wonāt starve over the winter when fresh food is rare. Cheese travels well, doesnāt need too much refrigeration or fuss and is full of nutrients.
Consumer Reports decided to weigh in with the recent article āIs Cheese Good For You?ā Hereās a snippet: āIn 2018 [...] 164 people each ate an equal amount of dairy fat either in the form of butter or cheese and then switched partway through the study.ā End result after 6 weeks: the saturated fat in cheese did not raise LDL cholesterol levels to the same degree as butter did. So yes, all things considered, cheese is good for you. Thatās all the excuse I needed to buy another huge hunk of Manchego from Costco. Read the whole article here.
āNetworking is a necessary ā and misunderstood ā skill. Hereās how to hone it.ā
In my informal mentoring work with new writers and aspiring lifestyle journalists, I talk about the importance networking often, but I know it can feel like a turn off. If youāre curious, Iāve formalized my thoughts here in this mini-book that costs $5:
š Build Your Career as a Freelance Writer: How I Cultivate Editors (and Avoid Personal Essays Like the Plague) Get it here.
Networking is not a dirty word, and donāt worry, introverts: you can leverage it in a way that works with your personality. An article titled āNetworking is a necessary ā and misunderstood ā skill. Hereās how to hone it,ā in Vox written by Teresa Xie explains some key tenets well:
šÆāāļø Your friends are your network, too. āPeople, even those closest to us, arenāt constantly thinking about us and our needs. They canāt read our minds, either,ā writes Xie. Get in touch and let people know what you need, job wise.
š© Cultivate your āloose connectionsā by email. āReaching out to that friend-of-a-friend who works in a field youāre interested in could open you up to even more circles,ā says Xie in this article.
āļø Keep in touch and send thank you notes: āAfter a phone call or coffee chat, always remember to send a thank you note to the person who took time out of their day to talk to you,ā writes Xie. āItās best to mention specific anecdotes from your conversation, and reiterate your experiences and what youāre interested in.ā
In many of these cases, Xie also gives you an email template to work from. Read the whole article here.
Thanks for reading this! I hope you gleaned a whole bunch of interesting anecdotes to bore everyone with over Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, hahaha!
Warmly,
Helen
P.S. In case you missed it, this weekās vlog delves into the best red wine to bring as hostess gift, and all the bougie picks I want to tell you about now so you have time to buy them on Black Friday. I also go to Nandoās restaurant and wander around my favourite city mall, the Toronto Eaton Centre.